Two semi grown-up adults living with our two sons, and 3 dogs. Join me for a crazy ride through parenting, renovations, green living, philosophical discussions, and more...

Monday, January 12, 2009

Why am I so Awful at THIS?

I am a terrible blogger. Just accept it, be grateful when I do blog, and don't be angry when i don't...

So we're several days into the new year, and hoping for a calmer year than 2008 would be a useless prayer so why bother? I feel like we live most of our lives in fast forward these days. Something to do, somewhere to be, a task to complete, go to sleep. I made several "resolutions" for our new year as a family, and most of them are looking pathetic so far. I started a journal for Tyler, and I do enjoy writing in it at night. I need to get a little night stand to go on my side of the bed so I can put it there and remember to jot a few notes down each night...maybe a little reading light too, so I don't have the whole room lit up. I'd like to say that blogging more even made the 2009 list, but in reality...it just didn't!

Some of my resolutions for the new year include:

Our family finances. I'd like to have all our debt paid off with the exception of the home equity line, the cars and the house. Those are our "good" debt :) Like that exists right? Those are tangible debts that I don't mind I guess. The home equity line was from Ty's adoption...so it's a large sum indeed, though I'm actually pleased with how little we borrowed compared to how much the adoption total was. You don't want to know. Highway robbery. Someone's getting rich off adoptions...not sure who yet!

Starting a new "addition" to the family. We have several choices for this, and honestly I won't know what road to take till I know. Right now I feel a strong pull towards adopting a sibling group from foster care. We'll see how THAT party goes down when we get started. I wouldn't rule out adoption domestically again, or even Ethiopia.

HOME. We need to get stuff done on our home. By the end of 2009, I would like every room in our house, with the exception of the kitchen and bathroom to be at least 95% done. I don't honestly care that most rooms don't have baseboard. We can tack that stuff up when we go to sell!

FAMILY! We made a huge change moving into 2009 where I am a SAHM. Most days! I work 1.5 days outside the home, but Tyler comes with me. I want to get it all balanced and working a little smoother! So far I enjoy it, but I'm having a hard time not obsessing about the house, and Tyler and everything being perfect. I mean let's face it, this house isn't going to be perfect...Neither is my nose picking, back talking one year old...so I should just relax. I'd like to read to Tyler more too. We sing to him a lot, but he enjoys books, so we should work reading in more too.

FOOD: Eat more locally, continue the CSA from March-December. I also have pledged to try and make my own bread, yogurt and cheese while I'm home. It's really important to me that Tyler not eat junk. Okay...mostly not junk with the occasional fish stick. What can I do? The kid loves fish, and I can't whip up a fish dinner a couple nights a week! I also want to work on his palete a lot this year. Studies show that between 1-2 children develop a preference for 90% of the foods they will enjoy the rest of their lives. So the more foods you can cram in and have your kid try between 1-2, the better. We do pretty well with Ty. Haven't found a veggie he won't eat (he eats raw peppers, eggplant....you name it) Fruits also always get the green light. Protiens are hit or miss...usually depending on texture, so I think tha will get easier as he gets more than 2 teeth. He eats whole wheat bread and I'll be hoping to move him over to whole grain, home made bread in the next couple weeks. I think we have a good base. Just have to start on the exotic fruits and sushi before he's two and we'll be good :)

ME: We're going to join the YMCA, and I'm going to GO. And not feel guilty that I'm a stay at home Mom who let's the Y babysit her kid so she can swim a couple mornings a week.

I think that's it? When you read that do I sound nuerotic? I am. I can accept that.

In other updates, Tyler, at less than one year old, has learned to say NO. It comes out sort of like DOE!, or DOH!...very clear what he is saying though. I gave him his first tap on the hand a few days ago when I asked him to stop throwing food off his tray to the dogs, and he said, DOE!. I tapped (and I do mean TAPPED) him on the hand and he desolved into a puddle of crying mush. I'm a monster. He stopped throwing food off his tray though, and ate his lunch. I think I have to ignore bad behavior, it just feels like this baby was born knowing how to push my buttons. He will snuggle up to me, give me a hug, look at me and smile...then whap...slap me upside the head and knock my glasses off my face. Sneak attack.

Miek washed all three dogs yesterday. That might not seem like something worth mentioning to YOU, but in this house, that's a major event. The tub was full of hair, I brushed them all, and got enough hair to full a stop and shop bag, and they are SO shiny and smell nice and are clean. They just fell better too...you can tell that they might not love the bath (well Dudley did) but they love how great they fell after. Dewey, our overgrown guinea pig, is a total brat about getting brushed. He's really sensitive about his butt. No idea why, but our trainer tells us that we didn't pull his butt fur enough when he was a puppy. What ever THAT means. They all seem to love that I'm home now, and they are in and out of the house constantly through the dog door. They do still enjoy dragging things they shouldn't have through it outside so they can enjoy them though. Mike makes a regular trip through the back yard to find the remains of their naughtness. Last trip he found one of my pairs of shoes that I got for Christmas. I got a black pair and a brown pair. I was impressed that although the shoes are stored right next to each other, they got both black shoes, instead of one shoe from each pair. There was also one of Ty's bottles, which I can't for the life of me figure out how they got. It had no top on it, so either that's how they got it, or one of them ate the nipple and ring. We're on poop watch again...YIPPEE! I'm sure the snow is hiding other treasures, not to be found till spring.

As far as work on the house, we are at somewhat of a stand still. When we gutted the first upstairs bedroom we found out...SURPRISE! We need a new roof. Which can't be done till spring. So we'll be tarping the roof on that part of the house, and then we just have to dry out the boards on the underside of the roof before we continue to replace the drywall and flooring. It was no small task. There were 3 layers of wallpaper, 2 layers of drywall, then the horsehair plaster and lath. That is all out, but we're leaving the carpet (pink of course) in there till the last second to help absorb some dust. We took out one wall, which we'll be putting back, but in a different spot. It enlarges the room some, which will help...when we have 12 kids :) Erina is pretty sure we can fit 2 sets of bunk beds in there...in the very least 1 set of bunk beds and 2 single beds! For now when the room is complete we will put our spare queen size bed in there, a twin bed, and the spare crib. I want to have the flexibility in case we do foster care, and for guests. If there is room, I might put the twin bed in Ty's room, so I have a place to sleep in his room in case he has a bad night. Course if the spare crib is in the other room, I could always move him in there, and sleep on the queen bed, which is SO comfy. Love that bed.

Okay well there you go. Not posts for over a month, but that one was a long one. Hope you all enjoyed it, and I'll get here to post more...yada yada.

About Me

I am Amy, married to Mike in May of 2005. We live in a home built in the 1850 and are renovating it at a snails pace. Add to the mix our two amazing sons through domestic adoption, Tyler (Jan 2008) and Matty (April 2009) along with three crazy dogs and I'm sure you can guess that I blog only when I have a spare moment!